Book review.

Intriguing Look Behind Roosevelt Presidency

May 05, 1995|By Reviewed by Matthew Dallek, a writer and critic.

Secret Affairs

By Irwin Gellman

Johns Hopkins University Press, 499 pages, $29.95

On Aug. 16, 1943, Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles submitted a formal letter of resignation to President Franklin Roosevelt. The president was incensed. He had lost his most trusted adviser on foreign affairs and had done so in the midst of the greatest crisis of the century. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, by contrast, was elated. For years, he had watched the undersecretary curry favor with the president and pursue what he felt were reckless policies. Now Hull had his revenge. Making use of FBI reports that documented Welles' homosexual encounters with black railroad porters, Hull had orchestrated Welles' downfall.

This is one of many stories about the private lives of U.S. politicians that have come to light in recent years. But did Welles' fate have much to do with the conduct of American foreign policy? Yes, says Irwin F. Gellman in "Secret Affairs," a history of Roosevelt, Hull and Welles and the deceptions and power struggles that influenced America's role in World War II.

According to Gellman, author of two books on FDR's Good Neighbor Policy, Roosevelt, Hull and Welles all had major flaws that undermined their ability to lead America during World War II.

Roosevelt, Gellman explains, was a brilliant policymaker but a poor manager. He never trusted career diplomats, encouraged fighting among his subordinates and failed to share his decisions with those agencies responsible for implementing policy.

Hull had little experience in foreign affairs, dreaded controversial decisions, harbored vicious personal vendettas and was so paranoid that he wrote "Read and Destroy" on every office memo.

Welles, the most competent diplomat of the three, served as one of Roosevelt's most trusted advisers, devised the president's Good Neighbor Policy and had the ability to put the president's ideas into action. But when drunk, Welles propositioned railroad porters, shoeshine boys and cabdrivers.

"Secret Affairs" is a fast-paced, well-written account of the bureaucratic infighting that divided the State Department, in the words of Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes, "into cliques and factions, with each strong subchief running his show more or less to suit himself and reporting to the president."

Gellman is less successful when he tries to explain how the personal intrigues and deceptions among Washington's leading diplomats affected American foreign policy during World War II.

The issue of Jewish refugees is a case in point. Describing the anti-Semitism of top State Department officials and noting that most worked to keep Jewish refugees out of the U.S., Gellman suggests that Welles' ouster and Hull's reluctance to speak out on behalf of European Jews (Hull's wife was Jewish, and he feared an anti-Semitic backlash might jeopardize his career) help explain America's callous refugee policy.

But even if Welles had remained in office, it is unclear how he could have convinced Roosevelt, already appalled by Nazi atrocities, to relax American immigration laws. Ultimately, the opinions and intrigues of Hull and Welles seem minor compared to other, less personal issues: the public's fear of job competition, FDR's belief that winning the war was the best way to save Jewish lives, widespread American anti-Semitism and public ignorance of the Holocaust.